


A little breath

by hes_per_ides



Series: Indrani Shepard [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Fluff, but also angst, post-ME1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 17:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10035323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hes_per_ides/pseuds/hes_per_ides
Summary: “So how about it? You, me, shore leave, totally normal romantic getaway?”They'd dared to make plans, now Saren was defeated, but since when did anything go to plan?(Post-ME1, beginning of ME2)





	

“Do you remember what I said before, about shared shore leave?” said Kaidan. The lights in the cabin were dimmed, still on the night cycle, but there was enough illumination for him to see Shepard’s face. She lay on her side, head propped up by her arm, watching with a faint smile as he pulled his pants on.

“I think you mentioned it,” said Rani. She yawned, stretched beneath the blankets then pushed them back and swung her legs over the side. “Remind me?” She stretched again, rolling her shoulders and enjoying the slight pull of her muscles. She crossed the cold floor to her locker on bare feet and began to dress.

“Well, I just thought it’d be nice. We could spend some time together. Away from all-” Kaidan waved a hand vaguely as he stood and fished a shirt from the floor- “All this. Duty. Work. Rank. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love that we’re able to work together and I wouldn’t want it any other way, but… sometimes it’s hard. And I hate all this sneaking around. This-” He paused and looked down his chest at the t-shirt that stretched awkwardly across his shoulders and was not nearly long enough “- this is not my shirt.” Rani stifled a snort at the sight.

“Not a good look for you,” she said, laughter barely contained. While he wriggled out of what was very definitely her uniform she hunted around for his shirt, which she found casually draped over the back of a chair. She held it up for inspection and turned out the collar for him to see the tag that clearly read “ALENKO”, then they exchanged shirts, bundling the fabric up and throwing them across the bed to each other. He caught his gratefully and pulled it on, smoothing the creases as he tucked it into his belt. “Much better. So, shore leave? Where identical uniforms aren’t a problem?” Rani teased. Kaidan shook his head, but with a smile on his face.

“Right. Shore leave. I don’t know about you but I’ve got a couple of weeks owed. We could go someplace nice, make a real vacation of it.” He slipped his arms around her and held her close, and she placed her warm hands on his chest. “Check into a swanky hotel, take in the sights, go for walks on the beach, get all dressed up and have dinner somewhere fancy-” he would have gone on, but Rani interrupted him.

“You mean like a normal couple?” Her brows creased with skepticism. It sounded lovely, but unlikely.

“Yeah, sure. Why not?” He shrugged. “We’ve earned that much haven’t we?”

“It’d certainly be a change of pace. So far our relationship’s been heavy on the getting shot at, light on the candlelit dinners.”

“Hey, with our lifestyle we’ll wind up ditching the main course for an armed stand-off.” Rani chuckled and dropped her forehead to his chest. He probably wasn’t wrong. Kaidan traced a finger along her jaw and tipped her chin up to face him. “So how about it? You, me, shore leave, totally normal romantic getaway?”

Rani regarded him silently for a moment with serious eyes, before a smile pricked at the corner of her lips and she nodded. “All right. It’s a date,” she said. “But if anyone points a gun at me, I’m blaming you.”

“It’s a date,” he agreed, grinning. They parted and he fetched his boots, and perched on the edge of the desk as he pulled them on. “We’d better get out there, we must be coming up on the Amada system by now.” He sighed. “Plus, y’know, the shift changes soon and the mess’ll start filling up. I really oughta be gone before that happens.”

Rani nodded. She’d opened her armour locker and was pulling out the protective plates and arranging them on the bed ready to strap them on in order. “Grab some chow then you should go get suited up. I think we’ll take Tali along today, never seen anyone who could hack Geth like she does. See you in the CIC?”

“Yes ma’am.” Fully dressed now, Kaidan’s tone was back in uniform too, the professional facade in place despite his commander still being largely in her underwear. He dropped the formality for just one more moment to dart back to her side - “Love you-” he whispered by her ear, a little breath, warm on her neck. He placed a quick peck on her cheek and then he was out of the door and gone.

 

* * *

 

Now she was in the back of a shuttle, two strangers sat opposite her and a mess of confusion sat heavily in her head. She was groggy, her skin burned all over like she’d taken an acid bath, her head ached- scratch that: _everything_ ached- and she was failing to process any of her present situation.

The dark haired woman before her was saying something, but Rani could only watch her perfect lips move and heard nothing. The man, she was sure she’d been told names but couldn’t now recall them, started to speak instead.

Something finally made an impression and Rani stopped him short. She blinked and shook her head. “Did you say two years?” He gave her an odd look. Maybe she’d already asked that…

“Yeah. Something wrong, Shepard?”

Oh, what a question. How about everything? Every single aspect of this absurd impossible scenario. But she didn’t say that. She looked away, out of the small window, where she barely saw the stars streaming by.

Two years…

It felt like moments since she’d been gasping over Alchera, unable to respond to the desperate voice coming over her comm and begging her, _please God please_ , to hold on. Her memory was pretty fuzzy, her thoughts firing oddly, but she _remembered_ dying. The creeping cold taking hold of her, the rasping emptiness in her chest as she tried to fill it with oxygen that simply wasn’t there, the shadows at the edge of her vision that had soon swallowed her whole. Something wrong? That wasn’t a question to ask someone who was two years a corpse.

Two years.

Where was her crew now? How many had survived? What the hell had even _happened_? They’d been after Geth but that sure as hell hadn’t been any Geth ship she knew of.

And where was Kaidan? She’d been trying to keep the thought at bay, tried to keep him from her mind, but it came all the same. He’d listened to her die, helpless to intervene, stuck in a pod that he couldn’t control and could only listen as she suffocated alone in empty space. Had he made it OK? What was he doing now? Did he know that her body had been recovered, that she’d been revived? Surely if he did he’d be here now. With everything they’d wanted, everything they’d been risking for each other; He’d be here. Suddenly, of all the aches throughout her body, her heart ached the most. They’d had so little time and been so freshly in love. And now-

Two _years_.

A lot could change in two years.

“Shepard?” Jacob asked again. Right. Jacob, that was it. Rani sighed, a little breath that clouded on the cold glass.

“I had a date.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's a good ten years since I last wrote anything that anyone else got to see. This may show.


End file.
